The canopies of English elms shade Northwest Boulevard and W. 1st Avenue, the entrance to
Grandview Heights’ southeastern neighborhood.

Several of the trees have stood for more than 60 years. Now, they’re standing in the way.

Some city leaders want to align 1st Avenue with Burrell Avenue across Northwest to become what
they are calling the “community access” to Grandview Yard. That route would cut through a grove of
elms next to Pierce Field and require the removal of others in medians on Northwest.

“I was pretty sickened by it,” said Steve Reynolds, a former Grandview Heights City Council
president. He’s leading a “Save Our Trees” campaign.

Besides the aesthetic value of the elms, they give 1st Avenue the appearance of a narrower,
slower street, said Reynolds, who opposes rerouting the street. Removing them would encourage
speeding, he said.

Traffic engineers have said that most workers will enter the Yard by surrounding arterial
streets. The added traffic on 1st Avenue, a connector street, would mostly be local residents going
to work, shopping or entertainment venues there, the engineers said.

“I am all for development of the Yard,” said Reynolds, who led the council when the city
negotiated the original development agreement with Nationwide Realty Investors in 2009.

However, he said, “There has to be a safe way of addressing more traffic without just making all
this massive asphalt and wiping out everything in its path.”

Without the 1st Avenue connection, “You screw up traffic,” Grandview Mayor Ray DeGraw countered.
He said that motorists would cut through the neighborhoods searching for a way to the Yard.

“The connection is going to happen,” the mayor said, but construction probably won’t start until
2016.